We had our share of crazy traffic. Bumper-to-bumper traffic telling you, yes, you've finally reached the friendly city. Getting stuck for 30 minutes on a one-lane mountain road watching an excavator transport shovel-load after shovel-load of rocks. Workers in neon-green vests shrugging at us, refusing to switch the temporary traffic light to green. Ending up on the wrong side of one-way roads. Almost running into a young deer at 2am on the mountain roads. Watching someone wham his vehicle hard into the one behind him so that he had enough space to park.

But I love the quaint road signs on the buildings instead of mounted on a post along the road. The roads, cobbled instead of black tar. Driving past vehicles transporting all kinds of things: Peugeot cars, sailboats, houses. Small picturesque towns, each with its own history. The sheer enjoyment of sitting in the car with a map on my knees, watching small circled points on the map materialize before my eyes as whole towns and cities.

A driving holiday gives a totally off-beat perspective. Have car, will travel.

Wide awake at 4am.

I gave up trying to sleep at 04:45, after the drug and the snack didn't help. Now I'm just hoping that I don't fall asleep at the computer, just before it's time for me to go to work.

Wondering why the jet lag set in so late, 2 days after my return back to Singapore. The body has its own strange reasons.

..she asks, "What do you do for jet lag?"

"I usually just wait it out. I'm so happy to be here that I don't notice it very much - just get up at four in the morning for a few days. What do you do?"

"I stare at the sunset. Then the body knows."

- from Bella Tuscany, by Frances Mayes

There is a certain satisfaction to having bullied your blog into looking exactly the way you want it.

My career options are constantly under review. Feel like making a career out of something that would, hopefully, take me halfway round the world. It's easy to say that I need a change of air. Deep down, I'm wondering if I'm trying to run away from something.

Need to get myself out of writing bureaucratic emails and putting up with spineless men. Need to get myself out of relying too much on certain people. Need to forget what it feels like to put my own job priorities above that of others.

I cannot be a back-stabber, neither can I tell lies and feel nothing. I cannot be a nice person to somebody else without covering up for the blatant mistakes that he makes. I cannot let myself degenerate into a lying, self-protective bitch who dresses nicely.

Love the new template. If only I could get the comments to work..

Jet-lagged. Missing (strangely) the hustle-and-bustle, the sounds of a language half-understood.

I log in only to realise that (i) it's been a month since my last log-in, and (ii) Blogger has a brand new interface. Feels like a long time.

Am catching up on some favourite blogs (sorely missed, in fact) and taking stock of what to do with this blog, since nobody reads it anyway.